Emery High Wrestlers Host Region Meet

By GARY ARRINGTONSports Writer

Steve Swasey tries to muscle his opponent down.

With Emery High's Spartan Center filled with wrestling fans from the five Region 8 schools, the Delta Rabbits used their depth, strength and experience to win the 2004 region wrestling championship. They finished with a team score of 306 points and five individual champions.

North Sanpete finished second with 245 points and four individual champions and Lehi was third with 236 points and two individual champions. The Carbon Dinos had five wrestlers in the finals with three of them going home as winners. Another Dino went into sudden death overtime before losing the match and the championship. The Dino team finished with 146.50 points as they also suffered, like the Spartans, with the lack of wrestlers. Carbon finished the season with about 20 team members while Delta, North Sanpete and Lehi all had over 40 team members.

The Emery Spartans could only garner 53 points as they wrestled only 10 team members. Jesse Jensen at 119 lbs, Kendall Bird at 125 lbs, Spencer Cook at 189 lbs and Steven Swasey at 275 lbs all finished fourth in their weight group and qualified for the state tournament this weekend at UVSC.

Talking with the coaching staff during the all day tournament, it was mentioned that Emery's program has several weaknesses that need to be overcome. The biggest concern is lack of participants. Emery simply does not have enough wrestlers to even fill all the different weight groups. Last weekend, the Spartans had no wrestlers in seven of the 14 different weights classes. This problem also manifests itself in practice every day; there are not enough bodies to practice against. The Spartans this season only had two wrestlers over 140 lbs, Cook and Swasey, and they had nobody to practice against except coaches. It's nearly impossible to get better without competition from within the system. This lack of participants is hard to understand with the good wrestling programs at Canyon View Junior High and San Rafael Junior High.

Head Coach Ferd Allred also said, "We need to get better at off season training. We need better upper body strength and more stamina." He appeared pleased though with what his young and meager band of combatants was able to accomplish this year.

Carbon High's three champions were Trent Greenhalgh at 112 lbs, who upset the #1 seed with a pin, Dustin Howa at 130 lbs, who was the #1 seed and Dallen McFarlane at 145 lbs, who pinned all three of his opponents. Russell Scow at 135 lbs lost in overtime and Brent Riche lost at 140 lbs.